wigolo diff

Structural comparison of two page versions. Point it at a live URL and its cached copy, two URLs, or two raw markdown blobs, and it returns a git-style patch, structured per-section hunks, or a counts-only summary.

Quick Reference

// Live page vs its cached version (re-fetches `new` side)
{ "old": { "url": "https://docs.example.com/api" }, "new": { "url": "https://docs.example.com/api" } }

// Two different URLs
{ "old": { "url": "https://v1.example.com/spec" }, "new": { "url": "https://v2.example.com/spec" } }

// Two markdown blobs directly
{ "old": { "markdown": "# Title\nold body" }, "new": { "markdown": "# Title\nnew body" } }

// Structured per-section hunks at word granularity
{ "old": { "url": "https://example.com" }, "new": { "url": "https://example.com" }, "output": "hunks", "granularity": "word" }

// Counts only
{ "old": { "url": "https://example.com" }, "new": { "url": "https://example.com" }, "output": "summary" }

Parameters

Output Shapes

• unified — a git-style unified patch, ready to read or store.
• hunks — structured per-section change blocks. Combine with granularity: "section" to align hunks to headings, or granularity: "word" for tight intra-line edits.
• summary — counts only: added_lines, removed_lines, modified_lines, and total_changed_chars (sum of added + removed line chars across the edit script). Cheapest way to answer "did anything change, and how much".

Comparing Against the Cache

The most common use is drift detection: fetch a page now and diff it against the copy wigolo cached earlier. Pass the same URL for both sides — wigolo reads the cached body for old and re-fetches for new. For a scoped, multi-URL sweep, prefer cache with check_changes: true.

Anti-Patterns

• DON'T pass an old/new object without one of the accepted side keys — the handler rejects it.
• DON'T use output: "unified" when you only need counts — summary is cheaper.
• DON'T diff two unrelated pages expecting a meaningful changelog — diff versions of the same content.

When NOT to use wigolo-diff

• Bulk change detection across many cached URLs — use cache with check_changes: true.
• Ongoing scheduled monitoring — use watch, which diffs on each check.

See Also

• wigolo-cache — check_changes for bulk drift detection
• wigolo-watch — scheduled change monitoring
• wigolo-fetch — pull a fresh version to compare